1 in 24 web users in Armenia suffer high rates of attacks

Review of August 23-30 telecommunications and information technology events.

The volume of electronic non-cash payments from Armenia via Internet amounted to AMD 2bln in the second quarter of 2010. The index grew by AMD 0.3bln (17.6%) as compared with the data of the first quarter of the year.

August 31, 2010

PanARMENIAN.Net - The subscriber base of VivaCell-MTS totaled 2 million 150 thousand people as of July 2010, increasing by 110 thousand (5,4%) compared with the same period in 2009.

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Orange Armenia jointly with Canadian Research in Motion (RIM) company introduced BlackBerry complex solutions, including BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphones, software and services. The device is available in 17 company shops at the price of AMD 230 thousand.

BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone includes built-in support for both 3G connectivity and voice calls over Wi-Fi networks. The Bold 9700 offers fast data delivery and an enhanced Web-browsing experience, allowing quick connection to social networking sites. Communication and connectivity features include email and a full menu of messaging options (SMS, MMS, and IM).The BlackBerry Bold offers built-in support for 3G cellular connectivity, data downloads and voice calls over Wi-Fi. Other features include access to BlackBerry App World, a 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera with video capture capabilities, and Bluetooth connectivity. BlackBerry user charge for internet services is AMD 7 500; 50 to 500 Mbps connection speed will be offered for AMD 8 to 10 000.The smartphone can also be used as a modem for high-speed internet connection.

According to Orange Armenia CEO Bruno Duthoit, 3-4 thousand smartphones can be sold in Armenia annually. “It’s hard to estimate the potential of smartphone market, as it started developing not long ago. Orange Armenia has introduced three types of smartphones: iPhone, HTC, and now BlackBerry,” Mr. Duthoit said.

Moscow State University (MSU) and Intel corporation announced Scientists of Future competition of scientific and technical works among senior school students of the CIS countries.

Moscow will host the competition's finals on October 9 as part of Science Festival, MSU said on its website. Its winners will compete for the right to participate in the international finals of the competition– Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) due May 2011 in Los Angeles, U.S.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF), the world’s largest international pre-college science competition, provides an annual forum for more than 1,600 high school students from over 50 countries, including Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, to showcase their independent research. The Intel ISEF is the premier global science competition for students in grades 9–11.

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The Caucasus region, with web surfers in Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan is the most likely to be hit by a malicious computer attack or virus while online, according to Internet Security company AVG.

The data taken from 144 countries, involving over 100 million PCs, enabled AVG to look at the incidence of security threats.

Turkey leads the league table for risky surfing, with antivirus software having to step in to protect on average, one in 10 users of the Internet. Web users in Russia (1 in 15 were hit), Armenia (1 in 24), and Azerbaijan (1 in 39) also suffer high rates of attacks.

At the other end of the scale, some of the world’s safest surfers can be found in Japan and Taiwan, while seven of the 10 safest countries in which to surf the Internet are in Africa. As a continent, South America was ‘safest’, and North America riskiest.

“Internet users in Turkey, Russia, the Caucasus and South-east Asia show disproportionately higher rates of being attacked than the global average of 1 in 73. There are a number of reasons for this,” AVG spokesperson, Roger Thomson pointed out.

“Some of it may be down to a tendency to access semilegal or illegal download sites, while some of it probably is down to being less cautious when it comes to sharing links and files online. Another factor is the popularity of Internet cafes and people generally sharing computers,” AVG spokesperson explained.

AVG Technologies is a global leader in security software, protecting more than 110 million consumers and small business computer users in 167 countries.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, AVG is the fourth largest vendor of anti-virus software and employs close to 500 people worldwide with corporate offices in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Germany.

AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and operates one of the world’s most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating web-borne threats from around the globe for both businesses and home customers.

The problem of cyber security and piracy has always been urgent amid the growing number of attacks against corporate computers, websites and IT networks. To know more about the solutions for software security, PAN talked to Dmitry Beresnev, Senior Anti-Piracy Manager & Compliance Director at Microsoft for the CIS countries.